Final Project Guidelines

Overview

The final project for this course is the creation of a communication framework and training plan.

As businesses incorporate more and more technology into daily operations, information technology (IT) professionals are tasked with not only solving technology problems and providing excellent technical services, but communicating effectively to a wide variety of audiences.

The purpose of communication is to perpetuate brilliant ideas, bring change, and solve problems in any discipline, but within the realm of IT, it takes on a particular twist.

Your final project for this course concerns critiquing and adapting existing technical communications to ensure necessary information is successfully delivered to target audiences, while developing a framework from which IT professionals can approach technical communications to a variety of audiences.

Throughout the final project, you will be utilizing the case study (BOLDFlash: Cross-Functional Challenges in the Mobile Division) and the artifact documents (located in the Assignments folder) for all milestones related to the final project.

The project is divided into three milestones, which will be submitted at various points throughout the course to scaffold learning and ensure quality final submissions. These milestones will be submitted in Modules Two, Four, and Seven. The final submission will occur in Module Nine.

This assessment will assess your mastery with respect to the following course outcomes:

IT-520-01: Integrate effective collaboration and communication strategies into technical enterprise solutions and communications plans

IT-520-02: Establish conceptual frameworks for planning and specific guidelines for communicating technical information to multiple stakeholders

IT-520-03: Evaluate existing technical communications for the extent to which they effectively communicate necessary information to end users

IT-520-04: Adapt technical communications to successfully meet the needs of various target audiences

Scenario

When promoted to the new vice president of BOLDFlash's Mobile Division, specializing in high-tech storage components for electronic devices, Roger Cahill understood very clearly that his top priority was to get the struggling division back on track. As he started in on the job, he soon realized that problems with technical communications were a major cause of the division's other problems.

Rapid sales growth, reorganization of the division itself, the vast number of products, and the fast pace of new product development had all increased the challenges of effective communication between division teams and with suppliers, partners, and customers.

As the just-hired director of technical communications for the Mobile Division, you must analyze the current state of technical communications within the company.

In your first days on the job, you have learned that there are no formatting requirements or templates for internal product documentation or
customer materials, that individual techs often develop such materials without any structure or guidance, and that the Technical Support team has received several hundred complaints about the complexity and, at times, inaccuracy of the instructions that accompany products.

What is more, various departments within the division have cited difficulties in understanding the products and services BOLDFlash's Mobile Division has to offer because of the extreme technical nature of the various products.

As one example, a project was conducted earlier in the year to prepare a response to an RFP (Request for Proposal) from the U.S. Navy for secure disk drives. Such contract responses require clear communication of technical aspects in a business context, yet upper management has had difficulty navigating the design specification documents and technical blueprints that the R&D group has prepared.

Cahill has tasked you with developing training on technical communication for the division's management team and with creating a cohesive plan for developing technical documents and communications that will benefit the company in the long run.

Prompt

Based on the case study (BOLDFlash: Cross-Functional Challenges in the Mobile Division), the three artifact documents (internal business processes, product documentation, or technical service communication), and the above scenario, you must construct a plan of action for tackling the various areas of technical communications needs. You will also need to pick an area of focus (the internal business processes, product documentation, or technical service communication) to begin adapting the technical communications that already exist and are not meeting audience needs.

To this end, you will produce a critique of an existing technical communication, including your methods for adapting the communication and your reasoning for the change. This will act as the basis for the technical communication training that you will develop for BOLDFlash's Mobile Division management team. The most important piece, perhaps, is the inclusion of a framework and guidelines for creating effective technical communication.

Specifically the following critical elements must be addressed:

I. Background and Area of Focus: Analyze the communication environment that exists within BOLDFlash. What are the particular areas of concern, and which area do you feel should be your focus to start? Specifically, which area (internal business processes, product documentation, or technical service communication) do you feel is the most important to fix first? Why? Provide your reasoning. [IT-520-01]
II. Framework for Planning and Communicating With Stakeholders:

a) Key Stakeholders: Discuss your area of focus. Who are the key stakeholders involved in this particular area, why are they involved, and to what extent will your framework for communication impact them? [IT-520-02]

b) Established Practices: What established communication practices would benefit your approach to communicating among the stakeholders that you have identified? Provide evidence to support your conclusions. [IT-520-02]

c) Construct a framework for continued communication, both technical and nontechnical, among the identified stakeholders. This framework will be the one to which the management team will refer for interdepartmental and external communication with customers. [IT-520-02]

III. Training Plan: How will you approach training the management team and communicating the new guidelines to existing employees?

a) What communication strategies will you incorporate and why? How are these communication strategies appropriate for those individuals to whom your training is directed? Provide evidence to support your conclusions. [IT-520-01]

b) What collaboration strategies will you incorporate? Determine the collaborative structure and strategies that will help the managers and
directors throughout and after their training experiences. Why are these appropriate? Who will be collaborating? Provide evidence to support
your conclusions. [IT-520-01]

c) Training Method(s) (how you will share your training with trainees and other stakeholders): Your method must be appropriate for the audience to which you want to communicate. Justify your choice(s) of method with research. [IT-520-01]

IV. Specified Guidelines From Your Focus Area: Outline the specific guidelines for creating successful technical communications. Identify the key steps-for example, who are the various audiences that need the information? Remember that your guidelines need to be detailed for your colleagues to follow, clear for your colleagues to understand, and accurate to ensure that the resulting communications are successful. [IT-520-02]

V. The Training: Select the methods for communication and collaboration that best fit your area of focus, and implement them in a training. Your training can be a written deliverable or a video/audio recording. You will select a specific technical communication artifact from the ones provided that is related to your area of focus to use in the training, and you will apply your guidelines to the audience identification, critique, adaptation, and explanation.

a) Who is the target audience of the communication? From the case study and artifacts provided, what characteristics can you identify about your target audience, such as their perspectives, backgrounds, and organizational agenda? [IT-520-03]

b) What is the intended message that needs to be delivered? What pertinence does that message hold for the intended audience? In other words, why does the message matter for the target audience? [IT-520-03]

c) To what extent was the technical communication successful in delivering the intended message? Did the necessary information get through to the target audience? Why or why not? [IT-520-03]

VI. Adaptation Example

a) Adapt the technical communication artifact to more successfully meet the needs of the target audience that was identified. Be sure to apply the guidelines that you established. [IT-520-04]

b) Explain what you did to adapt the communication and the reasoning for your changes. This will serve as the explanation to the management team so that they understand the greater context of the adaptation. Be sure to explain how the guidelines you have established were applied. [IT-520-04]

c) Now consider an alternative audience that might receive the technical communication, and analyze their dispositions and needs for
communication. Adapt the communication to this new audience and explain your steps to your team. How successful will this adaptation be in delivering the intended message to your new audience? [IT-520-04]

Milestones

Milestone One: Area of Focus and Framework

In Module Two, you will submit a written report that analyzes the communication environment that exists within BOLDFlash and discusses the particular areas of concern. This milestone will be graded using the Milestone One Rubric.

Milestone Two: Training Plan and Area of Focus Guidelines

In Module Four, you will submit a written report in which you discuss how you will approach training the BOLDFlash management team and communicating the new guidelines to existing employees.

Milestone Three: Training

In Module Seven, you will submit a two-part document. In the first part, you will submit a written report in which you select the methods for communication and collaboration that best fit your area of focus and implement them as a training tool for the BOLDFlash management team. In the second part, you will submit either a written report or a training video (or both) in which you exemplify the training by taking an existing communication to your area of focus and adapting the technical communication artifact to more successfully meet the needs of the target audience that was identified.

Final Submission: Communication Framework and Training Plan

In Module Nine, you will submit a communication framework and training plan (which includes any optional training videos submitted in Milestone Three). Your final submission should be a complete, polished artifact containing all of the critical elements of the final product. It should reflect the incorporation of feedback gained throughout the course.